Still unsure, she looked at her other friend. “You too, Fluttershy?” she asked.

The pegasus nodded.

She slid a hoof through her mane in frustration. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The quartet began their journey, all while being watched by a single cyan iris, peeking around a burnt-out husk.

Pinkie Pie trotted away from the scene, her head hung low.

A blackened and broken plank was thrown into a large wooden cart. Just another on the slowly growing pile.

There wasn’t much to do in the aftermath of the attack, and there wasn’t much anypony wanted to do. But doing nothing had always annoyed Apple Bloom. She hated doing nothing; especially today, on the day she lost everything.

All she wanted to do was distract her mind. So she cleaned. She cleaned up the remains of the clubhouse she spent many days fixing, and decorating, and cleaning. It felt like losing somepony she knew, somepony close to her.

It felt like losing a child.

She tried to clear the thoughts from her head, but they kept returning. They kept coming back in full force. Partly because some of the debris looked familiar, triggering memories of days gone past.

A husk of an album, the pages burnt to a crisp.

A collection of blackened heart-shaped paper, falling apart as she touched them.

The blackened fragments of a ceramic vase, shattered from the heat.

As Apple Bloom lifted a charred rainbow wig, she knew this couldn’t go on. She needed something new, something to distract her from her distraction.

As she looked over the remnants, a figure entered her field of vision.

Scootaloo threw some more debris on the pile. “What are you doing out here anyway?” she asked.

“Don’t have to sound so suspicious. Actually, Fluttershy told me to come over to keep an eye on you kids. Somepony has to.”

“Why not her?”

“Oh, she took off with Spike, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash. I think they’re gonna track down that dragon.”

“What?” Scootaloo asked.

Apple Bloom zoomed over. “What!? Where!?”

“Whitetail Wood; and no, you can’t go with ’em.”

The filly pouted.

“Why aren’t you with them?” Rumble asked pointedly.

“Well, I wasn’t really in the mood to get killed by a dragon this week.”

“But you’re fine with the four of them getting killed?”

Thunderlane scrunched up his face. “What kinda question is that!? Of course I’m not, but it’s not like I can stop them, I’m not married to any of them!”

“Oh, you mean that wedding with Spike was annulled?”

He leaned in close. “You’re really irritating, you know that?”

As the two siblings argued, far outside their line of sight, a young unicorn slowly slunk away. Once she was sure she wouldn’t be spotted, she bolted as quickly as her little legs could carry her, straight in the direction of Whitetail Wood.

As the quartet hit the edge of Whitetail Wood, Twilight found her pace start to lag.

Her companions passed her, and stopped, out of concern.

“Twilight?” Rainbow asked. “Are you alright?”

The unicorn knocked herself out of a daze. “Huh? Yeah, I’m… I’m fine, it’s just… last time we saw this dragon, it didn’t end well.”

Unease washed over the group. “Come on,” Rainbow said.

Twilight quickened her pace and followed.

“So, Spike,” she said, looking down at the young dragon. “You know where we’re going?”

His eyes scanned the path, as he tried to retrace his steps. “Yeah, I think so.”

She laughed slightly. “You’d think you’ve been down here before.”

“I was, last night.”

“What?” Twilight asked. “You were?”

“Uh…” He stopped suddenly. “No, but it… it sorta feels like it.”

The group picked up their pace again.

Fluttershy’s unease went unnoticed.

Sweetie Belle had to cross through the town to reach her destination, which was an opportunity she decided to take advantage of.

Bursting through the doors of Carousel Boutique, she quickly decided to search for her special collection of books. Magic books she borrowed from the library. She was only beginning her studies on the mystic arts, but now she knew she would have to start on the accelerated program.

There was a spell she spotted earlier in the week. It was simple and efficient, and exactly what she needed. She just had to find it.

The pile was exactly where she left it, in the middle of the main showroom. Shoving books aside, she quickly found what she was looking for. Flipping through the pages, she found the entry even faster.

She studied the page, to refresh her memory, then galloped off to the backroom.

At her late sister’s designing desk, she pulled open a drawer, and quickly found a large rolled-up sheet of paper.

Unfurling it on the ground, she knew she found it: a map of the Ponyville area.

Her horn began to glow a bright green, and she ran it over the map, slowly and methodically; specifically, over Whitetail Wood. It wasn’t long before she stopped over a point in the southwest corner.

Satisfaction hit her face, and she galloped out once again, to the pile of books in the showroom.

She scanned the mess she made, and quickly grabbed one of the books she knocked aside.

Flipping through it, she eventually found her prize.

Sweetie Belle was not exactly sure if this would work. There was much risk, due to how little experience she had. But it was a risk she was willing to take.

With all the concentration she could muster, her horn began to shine once again, brighter and brighter. Until, in a flash of light, the store disappeared around her, suddenly replaced by the tall trees of Whitetail Wood.

A grin appeared on her face; she was bursting with excitement. It worked! Now, she just had to find her friend, Spike.

A shuffling noise suddenly came from behind her. In a panic, Sweetie Belle dashed behind a tree, hiding her from view.

The trees were bent, and bushes were crushed, as a large green dragon forced its way through the vegetation.

The unicorn suddenly realized, she found the wrong dragon.

As Spike led the team through the forest, he realized that every tree, every bush, was exactly as he remembered it. Which was something he found quite bizarre.

The dragon was certain he’d never been down this path before… at least, in this world. To see it look exactly as it was in the world with Rarity, that was strange.

Confirmation that this was the dream? Or his mind playing tricks, correcting his memories of the dream to conform to reality?

How could he know? He couldn’t.

“Spike?” a soft voice echoed in his ear.

His head turned to see Fluttershy trotting alongside him. Their friends trailed several feet behind, chatting, discussing.

“Oh, hey,” he replied. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to know, how do you know where we’re going?”

Spike was slightly at ease. Would Fluttershy chastise him for using the dream in such a way? Doubtful, but it still worried him.

“It was the dream,” he explained. “A qilin attacked Carousel Boutique; we traced him to the same cave.”

As they walked along the path, the dragon’s nervousness increased.

“It may be completely unconnected, but I thought-”

“It’s smart,” the mare responded.

“What?”

“If the dragon’s hiding in a cave, and there’s a cave in the area, your subconscious probably knew that, and made the connection,” she explained.

“But I didn’t know there was a cave in the area-”

“Maybe you did, but you forgot.”

As they continued on the path, Spike’s mind rolled back, and he asked himself a simple question: have I been here before?

“But… I have one question,” the young mare asked.

Spike opened his mouth to respond.

A crash sounded in the distance.

The quartet stopped.

A loud roar.

They ran.

Sweetie Belle ran. Ran as fast as her legs could carry her. It was only a matter of seconds ago that she messed up. A single sneeze, so simple, so innocent, blew her cover.

She ran, dodging trees, leaping over debris, as her pursuer strode through them, destroying everything he touched.

A flash of light ahead. Four familiar faces skidding to a stop.

“Sweetie Belle!?” Twilight cried.

“RUUUUUUN!!!” the filly screamed, zooming past them.

She skidded to a stop and spun around, when she noticed they weren’t complying.

The four of them looked up at the dragon, who began to slow his approach.

“ERAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he roared, the wind nearly blowing the ponies back.

She kept her eyes on the corpse, and responded, “No, no it’s not… It should have been, but it’s not.”

“Um…” Fluttershy said, creeping up behind them. “So, what do we do now?”

The unicorn stood up, and simply said, “We need to find that cave.”

Spike’s eyes snapped open. He sprang up in his bed, and a bright green flame shot from his mouth, materializing into a scroll, and landing on the floor.

Without another thought, he threw the covers aside and flew out of his bed, faster than he’d ever done before.

Running to the nearest bookshelf, Spike started grabbing books, flipping through them, and throwing them to the side.

It was so strange. None of it made any sense.

What was ‘the order’?

A vague and unusual question, but one he needed an answer to.

They had so little information, only what they found in the cave, which amounted to a few letters.

Not much to go on, since they were written in a different language. While Twilight determined it was Toranin, she didn’t know a word of Toranin. It was such an obscure language.

But Spike needed more information… here, in the other world. If only for confirmation.

The most identifiable reference point was still in his head. It was all he had to go on.

He searched his scales for quill and parchment, but found nothing. His eyes caught sight of a black marker.

He grabbed it and ran to the nearest stretch of blank wall.

He drew a giant circle, with a slash proceeding straight through, from upper left to bottom right. From the centre of the circle, he drew another line to the upper right. Finally, Spike drew a jagged line in the bottom left hemisphere, parallel to the first line.

In the damp cave, lying on the floor, Twilight saw three pieces of green wax. Their colour clearly matched the residue left on the envelopes.

Using her arcane skills, she magicked them together, and could clearly see a single symbol embossed within.